Friends Care, Trust, Share

The books we have looked at this month explore a wide variety of friendships. What does it mean to be a friend?

The word – friendship – evokes other words: trust, caring, even sharing a special possession in a refugee camp; or secrets, dreams, and fears – the fear of losing a parent, the fear of dying.

In A Different Gameby Sylvia Olsen, Murphy learns to trust the friendship of teammates who think that leaving a tribal school is the hardest challenge they’ll face, until they have to help their friend die.

Dianne White has lived and traveled around the world. After a 25-year career in teaching, she now enjoys writing full-time from her home in Gilbert, AZ. Her first picture book, BLUE ON BLUE, illustrated by Caldecott artist Beth Krommes, is published by Beach Lane Books/S&S. GOODBYE BRINGS HELLO, illustrated by Daniel Wiseman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and WHO EATS ORANGE?, illustrated by Robin Page (Beach Lane Books) are forthcoming in 2018. She can be found at www.diannewrites.com.

While all of these look wonderful , it is 14 Cows for America that caught my eye. I vaguely remember hearing the story of Kimeli and the Maasai’s kindness and compassion at the time, and to see it so beautifully illustrated (the picture of the boy with the burning towers reflected in his eye? Gorgeous) made me tear up. I look forward to seeing the book entire.